Wednesday 14 January 2015

Wednesday 14th. January 2015

A pictorial catch up on a few recent outings .
A windy Bough Beech , full to overflowing now , produced very little apart from one redhead Goosander , at distance on the main reservoir .
Moving on to the feeders in the woods , at last my first Siskin of the Winter , still no Redpoll or Brambling .
It wasn't long before the Bank Voles appeared , looking for spillage from the feeders . Their MO was
to fill their pouches with as many seeds as possible , before heading off to deposit them in their store .
Mind you , sometimes it was a case of first come , first served .
It took quite some time for the Nuthatch to work up the courage to come in , but he did .
No such problem for the Marsh Tits .
Since the last post , I have returned to Kelsey Park on two occasions to try for the Firecrest in better light conditions . Although sighted once since , no sign on my visits . Whilst waiting :

In The Beck , under the overhanging vegetation , a Little Grebe , already showing signs of breeding plumage , caught , and was fastidiously washing what looked like a 3 spined Stickleback , before swallowing . Highest Mandarin count now 21 .
Stock Doves like this one already thinking about breeding .
Two Grey Squirrel who seemed to be de-lousing each other .
A male , determined by size , Egyptian Goose , constantly 'cackling' , as he watched his partner
getting into a bit of a flap after a wash and brush-up .
A very cold bird survey at Down House , only produced 15 species , and not a single Winter visitor .
Today's sunny start encouraged a visit to Sevenoaks Reserve . No cars in the car park wasn't a good omen .
From Willow Hide , only interest , a few male Shoveler .
A walk down to the 5 bar gate found the juvenile American White Ibis still on site , and quite close .
The first island from Tyler Hide produced a count of 67 Common Snipe , 19 in this shot . No doubt there were many more both on this island and others .
From the view-point between Tyler and Sutton Hides , distant views of the Goosander pair on the East Lake that have been around for a few days now .
And finally , two Jays along the track on the way back to the car park .

1 comment:

Warren Baker said...

....thats one Siskin more than me then Greenie!